While visiting Tony Stark’s house, Dr. Stephen Strange decides to meditate using some ‘special herbs’. He regains consciousness two days later, wearing one of Stark’s Iron Man suits and with only the barest recollection of what occurred.

I have a title for the Genndy Tartakovsky’s one: “The Unspeakable Tragedies of The Iron Gentleman in Paris.” The Iron Gentleman awakes in darkness, after moving an arm, he discovers he is inside a box, to which he breaks free easily. He doesn’t know where he is, but little by little, discovers he is in France, where every fantastic and amazing can happen: Men with 8 feet legs, hogs teaching philosophy, a 3 headed spider is the country’s emperor. The Iron Gentleman falls irrevocably in love for Yolanda, a tourist guide at a river boat in the Siene, who happens to be a mermaid.

The Alan Aldridge piece evokes another path: “There Is Always An Iron Man.” The School is where young Fust goes after reaching his 11th cycle. He says goodbye to his parents, only to cross the Red and Golden doors of the School. Every child in town goes there. If the are deemed worthy, they will never come out. But if unqualified, will be expelled. The School is a mystery, even to the ones that come out alive. The Iron Man inside is the protector of the world and has allowed only good things for everyone. But Fust is about to find out what it means to be the next Iron Man.

It’s obvious. Iron Man gets tricked into attending Burning Man. He spends days confused by the graphic, artistic and radical nature of this 7-day community. And when the Man actually burns…well, liberation and insight finally hit.

Tartakovsky’s: PRESIDENT IRON MAN
Unbeknownst to the voting public, Grover Cleveland (distant ancestor of Tony Stark) was the first Iron Man. His head kept alive after a horrific horse-and-buggy accident by a bulbous clockwork engine, by day he covers his mechanical girth with custom-tailored suits, while he performs his presidential duties. Under the light of waning moons and gaslamps, however, he dons a metal mask and doffs his raiments to fight enemies of the republic and set things straight with striking railroad workers.

Iron Man finds his suit is inexplicably losing power. He searches the earth, finding greater and more destructive forms of energy until he finds one which fulfills him, and consumes him.
(from a Japanese existentialist story about a cardboard box)

Rocketing over the clouds, Tony Stark flies SLAM into an invisible object, is knocked unconsciousness by a malfunction in his suit, and begins to plummet to the ground. The object uncloaks, and it’s a massive alien spaceship.

SPLASH PAGE. CREDITS.

Stark wakes up in an odd almost psychedelic alien infirmary. He has been rescued by the aliens, who felt bad that their observation of the Earth nearly caused the death of an innocent life — an innocent SUPERHERO life, no less.

Stark removes his helmet and the aliens are taken aback, shocked. ‘The prophecy!’ one of them shouts, and then there is silence and they all bow down.

Turns out these aliens worship metal alloys of all kinds, and the one they hold up as holding the most ‘pure’ combination of molecular valences & bonds happens to be… iron.

Tony Stark is in fulfillment of prophecy — and for the rest of the issue he is taken on a tour of the alien ship and instructed in the magnetic koans by an alien elder priest.

Meanwhile, alien scientists coordinate observational machinery in expectation of ‘The Event’ (the reason they came to Earth in the first place) — a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles. Something they have detected and which the megalomaniacal alien overlord also believes, much like the man-in-an-iron-shell, is in fulfillment of holy prophecy.

In the end, it turns out that the alien overlord is a nonbeliever and is simply manipulating his followers’ religion for the purpose of conquering the Earth — but first he must use the reversal of the poles to initiate a door into an alternate reality in which the Earth is populated by machines and which Iron Man exists but in a very different form (see second cover).

WAIT!!! Sorry I am late, but how some ideas. The 1st cover, Tony Stark tries to weed legalized (no brainer right?). The 2nd cover, a british invertor makes the “automanic iron man” to protect England, But instead it goes on a rampage in London whinch Iron Man has to stop (I know this one sucks but all the good steampunk ones were taken).

Something similar did happen recently, in the Spider-Man Fever miniseries by Brendan McCarthy. So they do do some weird things sometimes.

It’s always a bit vanskly to say that any particular book will be the same old. I remember when I bought the ten year anniversary edition of (a very famous 80s Batman miniseries, name of the series omitted because this story spoils it):

A friend who didn’t read comics started saying “What, you bought Batman? It’s always the same old, same old. Try to tell me that Batman dies in this issue. You can’t, can you?” Well… He kinda does, sorta.

The extremis tech in Tony’s body is invaded by an interdimensional alien’s AI. The AI is only curious in learning about humanity via the Iron Man armor, however its explorations threaten to turn the armor and Tony into a planet shattering bomb. Tony must turn inward to fight a foe that isn’t really a foe before it’s too late. When Tony makes his way inside the psyche of his armor, he finds it has a different kind of Jungian iconography.

Tony Stark is encouraged to go to someone called Doctor Insata about his alcohol addiction, to face his ongoing emotional problems at its route. Doctor Insata plunges Tony into a world in which he faced with dangers and obstacles from a nightmare. A parade of poem-spouting rabbits and fish, gnomes who want his eyes and even the one-eyed sun tries to kill him. All the while there is a shadow watching him. At last he catches this shadow is Tony from the past, who attempts to kill him, but instead of fighting Tony meditates and the spell is broken. To the horror of Doctor Insata Tony wakes up. Insata vanishes leaving Tony wondering what happened.

“Dreams of a sleeping armor” Tony Stark is actually just a remnant program of a rusting armor unearthed by aliens who populated a post-apocalyptic earth.” These aliens re-programmed the armor and Tony woke to a Manichaean dreamscape.

After victoriously finishing off at the box office with his newest movie Iron Man 2, Tony Starke makes the single worst mistake of his life by uttering the words “I’m bigger than Batman” to a worldwide magazine. His popularity drops overnight, forcing Tony to reinvent himself and often indulging in his alcoholism.

But through his genius he reinvents himself in a new psychodellic image. His weaponry has been replaced with a new stereo system that blasts ‘All you need is Love’ while flying over the horizon, along with other peace-driven songs. Tony Starke has even started selling his naval submarines in the color yellow.

Unfortunately, Deadpool gets convinced Helter Skelter is real and starts killing everybody. Tony is forced to come back to reality in order to stop the threat, putting an end to his music career and his extreme pacifism, just not his alcohol and drug problem. The Avengers are relieved to see their friend and comrade return to his original self. But they still do not welcome him back into the team until his divorce with his newest wife, Yoko.

I really don’t know enough about the Marvel Universe to attempt any specifics, but I do have some general ideas. Probably a few blaring holes and inconsistencies, but I’ll give it a shot.

Iron man would begin everything with the typical iron man thing, fighting the bad guys in pursuit of justice and all the good jazz. However in the course of the fighting, he uncovers the omnipresent Dr. Doom secret lab. He finds nothing and leaves, but out side he finds the happy acid world. Although unknown to the reader at that point, Tony has been exposed to a really powerful narcotic, kind of like LSD but a whole lot stronger, designed to cripple meta-humans and render them useless due to very realistic hallucinations.

Under the influence of the drug, he meets Clockwork Iron, the guy on the second cover, and finds himself in a weird world with the gnomes and octopi and eyeballs on he first cover, similar to the stereotypical happy acid world. Clockwork Iron is somewhat of a coward, and although he says he knows the way to get Tony home, he is too afraid to take him there. Tony sets out on his own, traveling through the happy hallucination world, but quickly finds the scary hallucination world, and is attacked by a Doombot, only now a lot bigger and a whole lot more bad ass (also cartoony). On the brink of defeat, he is rescued by Salt Pan (Pepper with white hair) and Clockwork Iron, although the latter doesn’t do much.

Salt informs Tony that she is the leader of a resistance organization against Doom, who has achieved world dominance. Tony offers to help them if they show him the way home that Clockwork mentioned. Salt agrees and takes him to the base.

There he meets Tulip (War Machine with a flowery side), Master Mister Jarvis (Edwin Jarvis turned the boss), Tarantula Man (Spider Man with some major mutations) and Nick Serenity (Nick Fury just not kick ass). They also refer to the Hulk (different as he is gray and doesn’t change back, and the is not a part of his name).

They attack cartoon Doom’s base, and do well against the Doombots until they encounter Black Adder (Black Widow only more violent) whom kills Tulip and mortally wounds Clockwork. Tony is sent ahead with Salt while Jarvis and Nick stay behind to fight her. Nick has a crush on Adder and finds himself unwilling to fight even more than normal. Jarvis has no qualms with the fighting, but is quickly overpowered. Tarantula Man, previously held up by his own mutations, arrives and paralyzes her with his venom just as Jarvis is about to be killed and the three take off after Doom, with Nick staying behind to attend to Clockwork.

Salt and Tony encounter Hulk, whom has no reason for being there other then to be, “a convenient and exciting battle” as he describes it. Salt remains to fight him and Tony goes to confront cartoon Doom. The two engage and begin their battle. Salt arrives at one point and is mortally wounded, but tells Tony the prophecy that he is meant to defeat Doom, and proceeds to win. All the others, including an alive Tulip and an undamaged Clockwork, arrive and congratulate him. Salt heals miraculously before Tony’s eyes. Black Adder arrives suddenly and shoots Tony in the head.

Tony wakes up in a SHEILD hospital, the drug having finally worn off after three weeks in a coma. Life resumes pretty much normally for Tony.